Why does Atheist Richard Dawkins sound religious? After all he agrees with most religions on Jesus?

Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984
reply to post by OldThinker

 

Nope i give up, you won't respond to simple questions, you avoid them like the plague so i'm going to spend my time debating people who actually try and defend their position. You were asked simple, basic questions and you never answered any of them at all.

It's odd though i get this feeling that either you're winding people up, are conducting some kind of sociology experiment or aren't all there. Well whichever i think i'll leave others to try and get a straight answer from you.

EDIT

Actually i'll try one last final time, just because i'm a hopeful soul.

1. Where is any proof that Dawkins agrees with other religions about Jesus?
2. In what ways does he agree?
3. Why do you state that Dawkins only does this with Christianity when he clearly criticises every religion?

Please answer those questions without quoting scripture, without avoiding them and showing verifiable sources for your claims. This isn't so much about theology as a claim you have made about an individual.

[edit on 17-11-2009 by ImaginaryReality1984]

Not sure why all the whooolpla? listen to the 'horses mouth here' with the Alan Colmes interview, ok?

www.youtube.com...

he clearly states Jesus was "a GOOD man" but as you and I know not God, right? that answers 1 and 2....

Concerning 3, I agree , you are right, he does criticize all religions....so what?...guess what? check um out....they too agree with him on the person of Jesus...but OT say's as CS Lewis said... "Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

more here IF YOU DARE: see www.youtube.com...

the only one who said "I CAN FORGIVE SINS"

Is that the same C.S. Lewis who created a fantasy world?
Let's go with Lloyd Geering instead eh?

Originally posted by OldThinker

he clearly states Jesus was "a GOOD man" but as you and I know not God, right? that answers 1 and 2....

It doesn't truly answer them but ok i'll accept that. Now answer why you're having a go at Dawkins about this when he would say the same for Buddha. Your posts sort of make it sound like Dawkins was singling out Christianity.

So basically i don't understand why you created this thread. Dawkins would say the same about any peaceful man who spawned a religion, again like Buddha or more properly Siddhartha.

I guess i've taken this as far as is possible, the thread makes no real sense but at least you finally answered the questions albeit not quite fully.

Originally posted by OldThinker

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
......

Clearly, sir, your intellect is not quite up to the exercise you endeavor to.

[edit on 17-11-2009 by TheWalkingFox]

OK, pls keep your head in the sand...

I don't think you're stupid, per se. After all, you're clearly not typing with your forehead. I simply don't think you're really sharp enough to catch on to the topic you're trying to talk about. I explain to you that Dawkins approaches jesus as an admirable fictional character, such as one might do with, oh, King Arthur.

Your response was a quote from C.S. Lewis. Surely, if you're such a smart guy, you could find a deeper thinker to do the deep thinking for you.

IF you think OT is stupid, pls google 'ASQ LSS MBB'

I am in the top .0001% world wide.....

And I'm a Navy SEAL who does dinosaur rodeo on my off time, when i'm not shagging my gorgeous wife and her twin sister. I'm also an astronaut. Saved the world once by punching an asteroid.

I've played "appeal to authority" on the internet before, buckaroo.

By the way. You're speaking in third person. That's not a good sign. You also put an extra B at the end of "MB." Also not the best sign.

nope, you are just intimated by a religious dude who won't back down

I'm not intimated by you. I barely know... Ohhhhh. Did you mean intimidated? First tip on claiming supergenius status - make sure the words that you use mean what you think they mean. You don't want to come off looking like you're Sicilian or something, do you?!

Come to think of it, I'm not especially intimidated by you, either. I've got religious relatives who would make you crap yourself. Bring on your best, let's get intimate with it

HEY, LET's do an DOE, ok?

You ready?

Let's put 20 yrs on my approach and 20 yrs on yours, have an impartial panel to evaluate the fruit from both? And see who comes out ahead...?

Approach to what? Assuming your typos are exponential due to your lack of spellchecking, I'm pretty sure that any panel you present anything to 20 years from now is just going to be confused.

Listen!!!!

When did this turn into a Zelda game? Are you Navi?

You need to understand clearly...OT was not born yesterday and my posts may not affect readers TODAY....but let's give it a DECADE or so...and I'm the one they will come to with a U2U when the SH*t hits the fan.....I could give you 25 or so that this has already happened....

Oh, it affects us plenty today. We get a good, pleasant chuckle out of them. Sort of like watching a wino dance with himself on the sidewalk.

Google the EMPIRICAL rule,,,it the CTL at affect!!!!!!

T

So. Tell me. Is Time a cube?

[edit on 17-11-2009 by TheWalkingFox]

both Keith Ward [ a former oxford professor] and Charles Tart [a psychiatrist] have written books explaining away materialism and why it no longer makes sense.

some people [who Einstein called 'professional atheists'] will never believe because of painful childhood exposure to religion.

Originally posted by ewokdisco
both Keith Ward [ a former oxford professor] and Charles Tart [a psychiatrist] have written books explaining away materialism and why it no longer makes sense.

some people [who Einstein called 'professional atheists'] will never believe because of painful childhood exposure to religion.

Appeal to authority, just because they believe materialism, and by that i assume you simply mean someone who believes in what they can see, hear, taste etc and not the modern meaning of an obsession with possessions, doesn't mean their view is correct.

Also to state with such certainty that some atheists are as they are due to a painful childhood experience with religion is utterly dishonest. Why is someone an atheist? Well because they have seen no proof of god, really very simple. It is for the believer to provide evidence of a god, saying that there is no evidence against it isn't evidence.

If we can base belief on that then everything is believable, from the sugar plum fairy to santa clause.

Also to state with such certainty that some atheists are as they are due to a painful childhood experience with religion is utterly dishonest.

A lot of ex-religious people, including atheists, tell stories about their childhood traumas with religion. Ewok only said "some." It is a reasonable inference.

Why is someone an atheist? Well because they have seen no proof of god, really very simple.

Ewok's observation is at least as honest as one atheist speaking on behalf of atheists generally. "Absence of evidence is evidence of absence" is a weak heuristic in any field of inquiry. In this field, there is no evidence either way, so the heuristic doesn't even distinguish between the two hypotheses in contention.

Although I do not share the atheist faith, I do acknowledge that there are devout atheists who reach their conclusions based on something sturdier than "you can't prove I'm wrong," that is, what psi-kiddies argue about their powerz.

It is for the believer to provide evidence of a god, saying that there is no evidence against it isn't evidence.

It is for the believer to provide evidence about a god; saying that there is no evidence against it isn't evidence. Neither is saying there is no evidence for it.

If we can base belief on that then everything is believable, from the sugar plum fairy to santa clause.

Many more adults have an opinion favoring one or another god than have an opinion favoring Santa Claus. That is an empirical difference between the two cases, and one that would, by itself, justify different levels of investigative effort between the two hypotheses.

There is also an already compiled evidentiary case against Santa Claus. We can document how he was first made up, and why his saga continues to be revived. We also have an extensive archive of voluntary confessions from those who falsely told others about Santa Claus and later recanted.

We're good on Harry Potter, too.

God, any god, is a trickier proposition. All too often, if you ask an atheist how God was first made up, you get a fairy tale. The two most popular are that early man's insatiable hunger for science misled him into a failed attempt to invent it, or that tribal humans shrewdly crafted a tool to control the masses, which would benefit their remote descendants when finally there were some masses to control.

These stories are visibly made up, just like any of the adventures of Santa Claus, the Sugar Plum Fairy, or Harry Potter. Except that Ms Rowling does better work.

[edit on 19-11-2009 by eight bits]

Originally posted by eight bits
Ewok's observation is at least as honest as one atheist speaking on behalf of atheists generally. "Absence of evidence is evidence of absence" is a weak heuristic in any field of inquiry. In this field, there is no evidence either way, so the heuristic doesn't even distinguish between the two hypotheses in contention.

Err what? Absence of evidence is the very basis of which theories to reject in science. Without evidence there can be no theory. Please answer logically if you therefore believe in the sugar plum fairy, santa clause or the easter bunny. After all there is no evidence for any of them and so, according to you that means they could possibly exist and as they have as much evidence as god (that being none) then you must hold them equal. If you don't like the sugar plum fairy example or santa then think or other gods like Thor, Odin, Ra etc etc.

Why dont you believe in those 3?

Originally posted by eight bits
Although I do not share the atheist faith, I do acknowledge that there are devout atheists who reach their conclusions based on something sturdier than "you can't prove I'm wrong," that is, what psi-kiddies argue about their powerz.

It is nothing to do with being unable to be proven wrong, it's just you cannot prove there is a god or even provide any small evidence of a god and therefore atheists lack belief. Without evidence how can we believe something? I dont' actively reject god, i just never believed, ever. Believing comes down to faith and maybe some of us aren't built to believe.

Originally posted by eight bits
It is for the believer to provide evidence about a god; saying that there is no evidence against it isn't evidence. Neither is saying there is no evidence for it.

No the believer has to prove a god exists for anyone to believe in said god just as a scientist has to provide evidence for a theory before said theory is accepted. I'm afraid you're just not quite getting this are you and you're not being logical at all. You say that people shouldn't require evidence to believe in something...........well in that case i have this theory that may interest you. Basically the world is going to end tomorrow when a large invisible space giant is going to eat earth unless you give all of your money to charity. I have no proof and therefore according to you that is good enough to be accepted

Originally posted by eight bits
Many more adults have an opinion favoring one or another god than have an opinion favoring Santa Claus. That is an empirical difference between the two cases, and one that would, by itself, justify different levels of investigative effort between the two hypotheses.

Sorry no you can't slip out of it that easily. Just saying that there is a consensus on an issue isn't proof of anything, people after all thought the world was flat at one point until the greeks proved that mathematically it was round. It is not empirical data, empirical requires solid evidence and there is no solid evidence that santa clause does not exist.

There is exactly the same amount of proof for Santa Clause as there is for god, that being none.

Originally posted by eight bits
There is also an already compiled evidentiary case against Santa Claus. We can document how he was first made up, and why his saga continues to be revived. We also have an extensive archive of voluntary confessions from those who falsely told others about Santa Claus and later recanted.

You're kind of missing the point aren't you, i say Santa is real, i have no evidence. You just said that evidence isn't required "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", by that measure Santa exists. But hey lets play the game further if you don't like Santa, i say there is a large invisible penguin orbiting Jupiter, again no evidence and you cannot disprove it, therefore it must exist.

Originally posted by eight bits
God, any god, is a trickier proposition. All too often, if you ask an atheist how God was first made up, you get a fairy tale. The two most popular are that early man's insatiable hunger for science misled him into a failed attempt to invent it, or that tribal humans shrewdly crafted a tool to control the masses, which would benefit their remote descendants when finally there were some masses to control.

Insatiable hunger for science? I've never even heard that one. How about a third option? People needed to explain the world and so made stuff up, it's very understandable as people are intelligent beings and so try to explain things. When a giant lightning storm was over head would they simply ignore it or make up an explanation? It seems logical they would try and explain it, just as today we try and explain everything.

How do you explain isolated tribes who have very unique stories of thunder gods, thunder birds or any other multitude of stories?

Originally posted by eight bits
These stories are visibly made up, just like any of the adventures of Santa Claus, the Sugar Plum Fairy, or Harry Potter. Except that Ms Rowling does better work.

How do you decide which stories are visibly made up? Because in all truth that is what the Bible is, a story book, as is the Torah, Koran and pretty much every other religious text. They were written years after Jesus was supposeedly around and no respected historian of the time mentions Jesus. Oh i'm sure you'll bring up josephus but he isn't that respected, the comments made were pretty much footnotes in large works and guess what, no other historians mention Jesus.

I mean if Jesus was curing the sick, feeding thousands with bread and fish and rose after 3 days don't you think some of the better historians would have mentioned it? Yeah right ok they ignored such important happenings despite writing about everything else of the time

Err what? Absence of evidence is the very basis of which theories to reject in science. Without evidence there can be no theory.

Science does not investigate theological, metaphysical, nor philosophical questions. How science handles questions about which there is evidence is always interesting to read, but irrelevant to anything discussed in my post as a religious matter.

Please answer logically if you therefore believe in the sugar plum fairy, santa clause or the easter bunny.

No, I don't believe in any of those. In fact, I disbelieve each of them.

After all there is no evidence for any of them and so,

There is, however, lots of evidence about them. I summarized the case concerning Santa Claus in my post. The evidence is uniformly negative, hence my negative conclusion.

and as they have as much evidence as god (that being none) then you must hold them equal.

No, as I have already stated, much more evidence bears on their existence than bears on any god's existence. So, I can confidently decide claims that might be made on their behalf. Oddly enough, the only such claims I have ever encountered as an adult come from atheists.

If you don't like the sugar plum fairy example or santa then think or other gods like Thor, Odin, Ra etc etc.

Why dont you believe in those 3?

That moves us into comparing like with like, which is always a plus. However, my religious perspective is agnostic, so I don't believe in any god. Not believing that Odin exists as a god is a different problem from deciding whether such a thing as a god exists.

No the believer has to prove a god exists for anyone to believe in said god...

I thought the issue was whether or not a god exists. Whether anybody believes in that god or not is a different problem.

You say that people shouldn't require evidence to believe in something

Really? I think my position is that in the absence of evidence, people can believe pretty much whatever they like. Where we differ is whether you believe something without evidence.

No gods exist is something. It is a proposition. You believe it. You have no evidence. Don't shoot the messenger.

Sorry no you can't slip out of it that easily. Just saying that there is a consensus on an issue isn't proof of anything,

Really? (Again.) You claimed equivalence between two ontological problems. I established that there was a difference between them. There is, that one among many others.

You're kind of missing the point aren't you,

You don't grasp the difference between "absence of evidence" justifying abstention from deciding an issue, and "absence of evidence" justifying disposition of the issue?

Sure you do. So, that whole block is resolved.

How about a third option? ... It seems logical they would try and explain it, just as today we try and explain everything.

Fabulous. So let's see the evidence that any of that is how the god hypothesis orignated. Phlogiston sounds logical, too. Didnt' work out, though, did it?

How do you explain isolated tribes who have very unique stories of thunder gods, thunder birds or any other multitude of stories?

I conjecture that many such stories would be told for much the same reasons that a Hebrew author depicted his God making a rainbow after the Flood. It confers sacred status on an aspect of the natural world, it reminds his listeners of God whenever afterwards they see a rainbow, it reinforces the idea that the Hebrew God is powerful, it specifically betokens a "covenant," ...

All sorts of reasons, then. There is no "explanation" of rainbows, though, nor even any attempt to make one. If you didn't already know what a rainbow was, then you wouldn't be able to tell based on what is said about rainbows in this story. If I couldn't exclude that rainbows are visible at night based upon the "explanation," then I conclude that explanation was not a purpose.

Also, of course, we can see that the rainbow story comes long after this God has been adopted by the storyteller's culture. That will be a problem for any myth you might present as evidence about how gods begin. It is easy to show that religion is a "tar baby." It crops up in all sorts of endeavors, after it has been instutionalized. Got Catholic threads?

How do you decide which stories are visibly made up?

Case by case. How do you decide?

Because in all truth that is what the Bible is, a story book, ... [through end]

Quite so. The theological question is whether the Bible's human authors did or did not write under divine inspiration. In the absence of any controversy about the humanity of the authors, you probably need to take up the inspiration question with a member of the faiths involved.

Failure to resolve that question satisfactorily, or even an adverse disposition, would still be uniformative about whether such a thing as a god exists. And no outcome is settled yet. No evidence.

[edit on 19-11-2009 by eight bits]

Originally posted by eight bits
Science does not investigate theological, metaphysical, nor philosophical questions. How science handles questions about which there is evidence is always interesting to read, but irrelevant to anything discussed in my post as a religious matter.

Actually it has everything to do with this thread. This kind of proves you don't understand the debate you're trying to have. Atheists apply logic and evidence as they tend to be skeptically minded. Note i said skeptic not debunker. Atheists require evidence for everything they believe in and as their is no evidence for god then they don't believe in one.

Originally posted by eight bits
No, I don't believe in any of those. In fact, I disbelieve each of them.

So you discount some things even though you said quite clearly that "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" and used that to justify the existance of god.

Originally posted by eight bits
There is, however, lots of evidence about them. I summarized the case concerning Santa Claus in my post. The evidence is uniformly negative, hence my negative conclusion.

Still missing the point. You claimed that a lack of evidence isn't important, it isn't proof that something doesn't exist and as you are unable to disprove santa clause then he must exist. However forget santa as an example and move on to anything random you can think of and using your view of the world we have to believe in anything we can imagine.

Originally posted by eight bits
That moves us into comparing like with like, which is always a plus. However, my religious perspective is agnostic, so I don't believe in any god. Not believing that Odin exists as a god is a different problem from deciding whether such a thing as a god exists.

It really isn't and again you miss the point. If any god exists then that means Odin, Thor, Ra etc all have equal merit and to discount them so readily makes absolutely no sense.

Originally posted by eight bits
I thought the issue was whether or not a god exists. Whether anybody believes in that god or not is a different problem.

Same thing phrased differently. The only people claiming there is a god are believers in god and so it is their responsibility to prove said god exists when they make threads like this one.

But hey lets play your game and just say the problem is whether god exists or not. I have never seen any evidence to prove a god exists and therefore i don't accept gods existance. Is that really that hard to understand? It's basically a belief system based on evidence.

Originally posted by eight bits
Really? I think my position is that in the absence of evidence, people can believe pretty much whatever they like. Where we differ is whether you believe something without evidence.

But that's the thing, it is incredibly hard to prove a negative which means you could make up any old story and have people follow it, think scientology here. There is no evidence for a god therefore i don't believe in god, just as i don't believe in zero point energy or cold fusion. When/if someone proves these concepts, with evidence then i will completely scrap my old ideas and replace them with new, more accurate ones.

Originally posted by eight bits
No gods exist is something. It is a proposition. You believe it. You have no evidence. Don't shoot the messenger.

Ahh see you don't quite get it again, how you miss this so much i'm not sure. I said that i have seen no evidence for a god and therefore can't believe in one. I didn't categorically state there is no god for some arbitary reason or because i had a bad religious experience or because i'm close minded.

Originally posted by eight bits
Really? (Again.) You claimed equivalence between two ontological problems. I established that there was a difference between them. There is, that one among many others.

There is no difference but i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.

Originally posted by eight bits
You don't grasp the difference between "absence of evidence" justifying abstention from deciding an issue, and "absence of evidence" justifying disposition of the issue?

Sure you do. So, that whole block is resolved.

It really isn't, using clever word play will not cement that whole "lack of evidence, absence" thing. Lack of evidence means i cannot believe in something. Look a belief in god starts with religious believers. these believers make the claim about whether god exists, this claim happened thousands of years ago of course.

So yeah it's up to them to prove god exists and if they ever find proof i will honestly switch completely. You know i wish there were a god, honestly i do. It would be so much easier to believe in a god, to believe that death wasn't the end, heaven existed, that poor starving children got a reward etc. So why would anyone choose not to believe?

Originally posted by eight bits
Fabulous. So let's see the evidence that any of that is how the god hypothesis orignated. Phlogiston sounds logical, too. Didnt' work out, though, did it?

Isolated tribes do exist and when we meet them they all have supernatural explanations for natural phenomenon. Isn't that proof of god being a man made invention? Isn't it proof that god and the supernatural come from people trying to make sense of the world? As for Phlogiston, well science discounts theories when they are wrong and moves on. That criticism is a silly one because science is self correcting, science admits when it is wrong.

Originally posted by eight bits
I conjecture that many such stories would be told for much the same reasons that a Hebrew author depicted his God making a rainbow after the Flood. It confers sacred status on an aspect of the natural world, it reminds his listeners of God whenever afterwards they see a rainbow, it reinforces the idea that the Hebrew God is powerful, it specifically betokens a "covenant," ...

So you're saying the religion exists before the phenomenon is witnessed and the phenomenon is either attributed to god or shown as a sign of gods greatness? The problem with that thinking is that the phenomenon would have existed well before religions did and well before we developed intelligent thought. So it follows logically that people who had finally developed conciousness would see a rainbow and then make something up as to how it developed. These small stories and myths eventually got stitched together and bingo, religion.

Originally posted by eight bits
All sorts of reasons, then. There is no "explanation" of rainbows, though, nor even any attempt to make one. If you didn't already know what a rainbow was, then you wouldn't be able to tell based on what is said about rainbows in this story. If I couldn't exclude that rainbows are visible at night based upon the "explanation," then I conclude that explanation was not a purpose.

Yeah i didn't quite follow that, mind trying again?

Originally posted by eight bits
Also, of course, we can see that the rainbow story comes long after this God has been adopted by the storyteller's culture. That will be a problem for any myth you might present as evidence about how gods begin. It is easy to show that religion is a "tar baby." It crops up in all sorts of endeavors, after it has been instutionalized. Got Catholic threads?

Really no, i stated above the logical progression of a religion. Do i have evidence? I have none because i can't travel back in time, i do however have a very logical progression of events. The ideas you have would only work if a whole religion existed without anyone witnessing the phenomenon and then fixing it on to the reliigion. Or they would have to simply ignore it until the religion was formed and then make something up. Both of those ideas seem highly unlikely.

Originally posted by eight bits
Case by case. How do you decide?

Now that was a quote mine to avoid a question, why not take it in context and answer that one honestly.

Originally posted by eight bits
Quite so. The theological question is whether the Bible's human authors did or did not write under divine inspiration. In the absence of any controversy about the humanity of the authors, you probably need to take up the inspiration question with a member of the faiths involved.

Not really it can be discussed by anyone. It comes down to whether people today hear god and guess what, they do and we call them scitzophrenics, we lock them up and give them drugs. It is my humble belief that some of the people who wrote the Bible were nut jobs.

Originally posted by eight bits
Failure to resolve that question satisfactorily, or even an adverse disposition, would still be uniformative about whether such a thing as a god exists. And no outcome is settled yet. No evidence.

Once again it is exceedingly hard to prove a negative. However anything a skeptical mind believes tends to require evidence. a lack of evidence means that mind doesn't believe. An outcome is therefore easy for a skeptics mind.

Consider for a moment these propositions.

1. There is a giant orbiting jupiter, it's invisible but secretly controls all our weather. Oh we think we know what causes our whether but it is the giant that manipulates it.

2. The classic. There is a teapot orbiting neptune, it's invisible as well.

You can't prove me wrong, just can't and so you must accept that this giant and teapot possibly exists if we apply your whole "absence of evidence, isn't evidence of absence" argument.

Originally posted by OldThinker

hmm??

I've heard that Jesus never actually claimed He was God."

John 14:7-10 [7] If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." [8] Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." [9] Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father'? [10] Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

John 10:30 "I and the Father are one."

John 14:11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

more: www.godonthe.net...

Mod Edit: Posting work written by others – Please Review This Link.


[edit on 11/16/2009 by TheRedneck]

THE thing is I AM NOT CHRISTIAN...I believe jesus was a great prophet not a god..he never claim to be..
as far as BIBLE concern,people change it through time..it was the words of god but people change many parts ot it..
THATs why theRe are scientific errors on bible..book of god donot have any errors...PEOPLE change it long time ago considering their information of that time

Einstein said 'professional atheists,Keith Ward an oxford porf replies to Dawkins and dismantled his book The God Delusion and quantum physics is an odd old thing. why not leave the door off possibility open just 5%? if not,then its easy to imagine other motivations at hand.

Atheists require evidence for everything they believe in and as their is no evidence for god then they don't believe in one.

What you have is called a heuristic. Yours goes something like "Decide against any existence claim, unless the evidence compels its acceptance." Somebody else prefers "Where there's smoke, there's fire," or whatever.

They're all good. They get the right answer some of the time. They get the wrong answer some of the time. Better than nothing, but there's nothing to get excited about when two people choose different heuristics.

So you discount some things even though you said quite clearly that "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" and used that to justify the existance of god.

One (to be explained below)

I stated the evidentiary case against Santa Claus, two posts ago. There is evidence about that question. I used that evidence to reach a conclusion.

You claimed that a lack of evidence isn't important,

Two (to be explained below)

No, I didn't.

and using your view of the world we have to believe in anything we can imagine.

Three ... oh never mind, we'll just go with two (to be explained below)

What are you talking about? I can imagine Odin existing as a god. I don't believe Odin exists as a god.

But that's the thing, it is incredibly hard to prove a negative

Well that's just too damned bad. You can refrain from deciding, or you can acknowledge that your decision isn't based on evidence. Or, you can back up what you say with evidence, despite the hardship. Simple.

Isolated tribes do exist and when we meet them they all have supernatural explanations for natural phenomenon.

No, humans everywhere have stories about the interaction of supernatural beings and natural phenomena. It does not follow that the purpose of those stories is to "explain" anything about the natural phenomena.

So you're saying the religion exists before the phenomenon is witnessed and the phenomenon is either attributed to god or shown as a sign of gods greatness?

Yes. This specific story visibly provides no explanation of rainbows. I chose it to illustrate the variety of other reasons why a religious story would include natural phenomena.

As soon as you come up with some religious stories that do present explanations of natural phenomena, then we'll need to assess whether the phenomenon caused a religion to break out to furnish the explanation, or whether an already existing religion volunteered to explain the phenomenon.

So it follows logically that people who had finally developed conciousness would see a rainbow and then make something up as to how it developed.

See, that's the problem. It doesn't follow logically.

Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. If you want me to take seriously your claim that they did, then you need to show evidence that they did, not that it makes sense to you if they did, or that it is logically possible that they did.

I remind you that your claimed stance is that you don't believe things without evidence. You've just shown that you believe something based solely on a little just-so story that makes sense to you.

Dude looked at a rainbow and invented god, or else people first came to believe in a god some other way. Both are tenable hypotheses. There is no evidence before us. Place some.

Now that was a quote mine to avoid a question, why not take it in context and answer that one honestly.

In my earlier post, I gave an example of how I judge visibly made-up stories, using your Santa Claus example. Other similar stories would be treated similarly, but the particulars would vary depending on the specific story. In English, that is called "case by case."

You can't prove me wrong, just can't and so you must accept that this giant and teapot possibly exists if we apply your whole "absence of evidence, isn't evidence of absence" argument.

I can reach heuristic conclusions about the propositions you offer, based on the presence of evidence sufficient to support the belief asserted.

Your "classic" is what you remember of a remark made by Bertrand Russell. He offered it as an example of something he made up, and he seems to have been an honest man. So, I accept his testimony, and doubt that you have rehabilitated it by misremembering the details.

Nice illustration of case by case, too.

As to your first, I like a heuristic principle of evidentiary interpretation, "Regarding testimony, false in one thing, false in everything." You made up at least two false things about me. I suspect the giant may be another one of your inventions.

Personally, I could also have rejected them prioristically, since I do not hold that there is anything wrong with priorism, a variety of which in religious questions is also called faith. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" never costs more than acknowledging that some opinion of mine isn't based on evidence.

For example, I think there is no largest prime pair. I make no secret about that. No evidence is possible, except the proof that may or may not ever come, but nobody has ever made me regret my candor that I have an opinion anyway, while we're all waiting.

However, back to your examples, had it not been for the context making them worth discussing, then what I probably would have done is to dismiss them. That is, I would ordinarily find them uninteresting to discuss, and so would decline to do so, without making any claim about their truth or falsehood.

Why on Earth would I trouble myself to make an ontological assertion when there is no need to? Especially when we all know how hard it is to prove a negative.

[edit on 19-11-2009 by eight bits]

reply to post by eight bits


Lets boil this down to stances shall we, because your talk of heuristics is sadly nonsense with regard to this issue.

Your position, and please corect me here if i haven't gotten it quite right seems to be as follows.

That god might exist because there is no evidence to say he/she/it doesn't exist.

This is the position of a non skeptical, logical mind. You are basically half a believer which allows you to assume a position without evidence for it. It is the believer who makes the claim of god existing and so it is for the believer to provide evidence for their claim. I used to be like you but i was just fooling myself, that nagging hope that when i seriously addressed it i realised it was not at all logical.

My position is very simple.

I accept anything if it has verifable evidence behind it.

This is the position of a skeptical, logical mind. I cannot provide evidence that there is no god as i cannot provide evidence that there is no such thing as fairies. Oh i can trace the mythology of fairies back a long way but when i reach the beginning i still have to accept the posibility, if i had your mindset that fairies existed and the stories were based on real encounters with them. But as there is no proof of god or fairies then i can't possibily believe it.

I'll finish here because we're going round in circles, skeptical logic vs a semi believer mindset.

Originally posted by eight bits
Why on Earth would I trouble myself to make an ontological assertion when there is no need to? Especially when we all know how hard it is to prove a negative.

That however is the point you will forever miss and i won't bother labouring it after this post. Proving a negative is almost impossible and therefore with your mindset almost any claim is possible in regards to an afterlife or mythical beings.

Science, a skeptical mind and logic all point against this line of thinking.

[edit on 20-11-2009 by ImaginaryReality1984]

Lets boil this down to stances shall we, because your talk of heuristics is sadly nonsense with regard to this issue.

You have called me dishonest, you have repeatedly misrepresented my position, and now all you have left to say is that a standard term in epsitemology is nonsense.

Fine, if you believe that, then you and I agree, albeit for different reasons, that our conversation has exceeded its useful course.

Have a pleasant day.

Originally posted by eight bits
You have called me dishonest, you have repeatedly misrepresented my position, and now all you have left to say is that a standard term in epsitemology is nonsense.

No i'm just pointing out that you approach this issue from a philosophical standpoint, i approach it from a scientific standpoint and that is i think where we're hitting a brick wall. I did not say the term was nonsense, i meant that the application of it to this problem is nonsense when you're trying to argue with someone applying what is basically the scientific method, that being evidence is required to believe something and a lack of evidence is not proof.

If you want to philosophically argue the point then you'll just have to pick someone else as i don't base my religious beliefs on philosophy.

However...IF...you read the book by Keith Ward 'Doubting Dawkins' it should open the atheists mind to the Possibility of God. if not,as Einstein noted,it indicates a hatred of religion that was almost certainly begun from childhood. then you realise that such an atheist is not really to be bothered with.

Originally posted by ewokdisco
However...IF...you read the book by Keith Ward 'Doubting Dawkins' it should open the atheists mind to the Possibility of God. if not,as Einstein noted,it indicates a hatred of religion that was almost certainly begun from childhood. then you realise that such an atheist is not really to be bothered with.

Hang on a second. I have read the Bible itself and tons of other religious texts and have yey to find evidence of god. You are basically saying that if someone doesn't believe in god then they are immediately discredited. This is a deeply dishonest view as it attacks the person and not their opinions. All many atheists ask is that we are provided with evidence to believe in something. You provide no evidence and therefore we have no belief.

You also make the rather horrible assumption that all atheists read Dawkins' books, at least from your reading recommendation this is how it seems. I have not read one of Dawkins books.

Also please don't hijack Einstein, i really hate how you people quote mine and horribly paraphrase people on the important points. How about the full quote? Oh here it is.

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.

Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949

Whilst i do not agree with Einstein that the professional atheists grew out of childhood religious indoctrination (some do some don't) at least here we see the full and proper quote in context with the part about Einstein not believing in a personal god.

reply to post by OldThinker


Are you aware that someone can be both a lunatic and make profound and insightful statements? I know people with bi-polar and schizophrenic disorders and I have heard them make statements that are both crazy and profound. This does not make them divine.

I'm not sure why this concept is so difficult. Richard Dawkins is saying that Jesus made many insightful philosophical statements, but this does not make him god.

You are using a youtube video and what someone else thinks as proof that Jesus couldnt be both a lunatic and insightful. That video invokes false logic to make a point.

Thank you, IR, for placing Einstein's entire paragraph into discussion.

Taken as a whole, it is a comment about the psychology of the "big three" religious stances: the most usual kinds of theism, atheism, and agnosticism that Einstein found in his time and culture.

So, indeed, you correctly note that he was not describing all atheists, but only "professional atheists" who display "crusading spirit." And whatever he might have said about them would simply be his personal opinion, especially since he identified himself as not one of them.

Happily, this thread is about Richard Dawkins. Einstein, despite writing decades ago, describes Richard Dawkins, who is a professional crusader with fervor. In his post, Ewok ties Einstein's quote to Dawkins, who is the named subject of Ward's book.

So, it is not the case that Ewok "quote mined." He correctly related Einstein's comments to the topic of this thread.

In the specific case of Richard Dawkins, it is uncontroversial that he was educated and boarded while an adolescent at the Oundle School

www.oundleschool.org.uk...

which is not an especially religious environment, neither pious nor atheist. Before that (younger than about 12, say), there is nothing that I can find which supports Dawkins himself having been strenuously indoctrinated.

It can hardly be denied, however, that Dawkins does display "fervor" about the issue of childhood indoctrination in theist religions.

hxxp://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/childhood-abuse-and-the-escape-from-religion-is-the-9th-chapter-of-richard-dawkinss-the-god-delusion-il liberal/

(The post handler cannot accommodate the link... you know what to do)

We can only speculate, as Einstein would only be able to speculate, about why such fervor about that specific issue.

It is very likely that Dawkins would have encountered, as a child, the Anglican doctrine of Hell. It is possible that this encounter may have disturbed him, just as he complains that it disturbs other children.

Regardless of why, however, Dawkins visibly has a bug up his nose about this "issue."

So, there is some truth to Einstein's remark about "professional" atheism, as it applies to the subject of this thread.

Therefore, Ewok's use of the quote and his paraphrase of it were fully justified.

Also please don't hijack Einstein, i really hate how you people quote mine and horribly paraphrase people on the important points.

Of course, having the full quote improves the discussion, and I am sincere in my thanks. I do have a concern, however, about the readiness with which you accuse those with whom you disagree of acting in bad faith. You did it to me, repeatedly. You've done it to Ewok.

Knock it off.

[edit on 26-11-2009 by eight bits]